Early Choline Research and the Aftermath

The paper I presented at the Federation meetings in Boston (1) in 1942 was, surprisingly, one of those often cited, particularly the details as published later (2). This method for choline analysis was published in “Methods of Biochemical Analysis” through several editions. My interest in choline had been generated by the exhibit of Wendell H. Griffith at the Federation Meetings in New Orleans in 1940. A search for proteins of low methionine content (a choline sparer) led to the use of methanolextracted peanut meal, a decision that led to interesting implications later in choline-deficiency studies. Fatal choline deficiency could regularly be produced in weanling rats fed the extracted peanut meal diet (3). The severe demand (100% fatality) was particularly apparent in rats of the Alabama Experiment Station (AES) strain,’ less so in the Sprague-Dawley strain. Within the AES strain, the susceptibility to choline deficiency was evident in the second generation when the most susceptible were compared with the least susceptible (4).